


Where He Ends, She Begins

by sillythings



Category: Naruto, Sasusaku - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2020-11-10 17:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20855654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sillythings/pseuds/sillythings
Summary: Sasuke reflects upon his love for Sakura.I'm bad with titles, but this will be a place where I will collect any drabbles and ficlets as they come to me about my favorite Naruto pairing.





	1. Chapter 1

Sasuke thought he knew what to expect.

Theoretically, he understood what to do. Though he had sneered at Kakashi when his old sensei gave him a well worn copy of Icha Icha Paradise as a parting gift before he and Sakura left on their current mission, he had studied the pages thoroughly in secret. It was mostly insipid drivel, but there were a few well thumbed pages that went into enough detail to be helpful.

He supposed it was like studying a new jutsu. You could understand the motions and the result. You could study diagrams, but until you actually made the hand signs yourself and felt the flames tear through your lips, you really did not know anything at all.

Sasuke thought it would weaken him. Back when he was a disciple of Orochimaru, when he had sought to sever all bonds of affection, he still occasionally received news of Konoha and of his ex-teammates. He allowed himself these morsels of home to test himself, to ensure that he had the strength to ignore them. And mostly he did.

But then he received the news that both Naruto and Sakura were studying under the other two sannins, and word spread throughout the land, rumors of the lovely pink-haired kunoichi apprenticed to the Hokage. She was a maiden with healing hands and eyes like the spring. She was a monster with fists of death. When he heard these tales, he tried to remain passive, but sometimes the corner of his mouth would quirk up, and a quick, swiftly smothered spark of pride would flare in his chest.  _ Good for her!  _ He always knew she had the potential for brilliance. 

Not often, but sometimes at night, when his training had taken him to his physical and emotional limit, with his curse mark aching, he allowed himself the gentle memory of her comforting hand clasped in his, her arms around his neck. His fatigued mind would wonder if her now powerful hands were still as soft. These thoughts made his belly tight and his resolve for revenge falter. During those very rare times that he gave in to these fleeting fantasies, fumbling with himself in the dark, he felt weak and shaky afterward, angry for giving into such foolishness. His biology betrayed him, he told himself, making him a traitor to his cause.

It was not just biology though. If it had been, how much easier it would have been to dismiss. How easy it would have been to take Karin up on her numerous offers, but he never did. Never wanted to. Never even thought about it. Only Sakura stirred that particular need, made him weak in that particular way. 

When Sasuke returned to Konoha, returned to his team and to her, he was willing to be weak. He had lost to Naruto and as a result, he won back his soul. He was ready to lose to Sakura, and maybe he could win back his heart or at least give it to her for safekeeping.

While it was a surrender on his part, he could not rightly call it a loss. Being close to Sakura made his heart race and his bones feel soft, but it was a feeling not unlike the end of a good spar, knowing that while the training may have temporarily worn him out, he would grow stronger every time he pushed himself to his limits.

So, when Sakura and Sasuke grew past shy kisses and tentative caresses, they gave into their passion for one another very matter-of-factly. They were both shinobi in peak, physical condition. They understood their bodies, how to make them move and perform, and shyness had no place when one was caring for a teammate. Being coy about bodies or blood could cost a comrade his or her life, and an injured shinobi must allow himself to be vulnerable to the medic caring for him.

Besides, Sakura had seen Sasuke vulnerable and exposed long before they became lovers. She wept over his injuries on the bridge at the end of their first real mission. She held him in her strong, gentle arms when he writhed in agony with the curse mark. She sat vigil by his hospital bed after his first meeting with Itachi. She had mended the mangled, bloody stump of his left arm. His body was not a particular surprise to her in many ways. 

She had probably even seen his bare ass a few times in their genin days. The pissing contests between him and Naruto were sometimes quite literally pissing contests. Though Kakashi tried to shield innocent Sakura from the more vulgar aspects of their boyish rivalry, she had certainly caught a glimpse of things she probably should not have. 

That is not to say that Sakura did not gasp the first time she saw Sasuske bare and flushed with excitement. That is not to say that Sasuke did not feel his heart thud in his chest and his mouth go dry the first time she lay before him, smooth and pale and pink in all the best places. 

But the fact was, they had laid each other bare emotionally long before the first time Sakura’s blouse slipped from her shoulders and revealed her small, perfect breasts to his astonished eyes. They had already wept and confessed to each other. She knew his every sin. He knew her every fear. Being physically naked was not nearly as jarring as those moments they bared their very souls to each other.

Still, he was surprised by how much feeling there was in the act. It was not just the new pleasure of skin on skin. It was the feeling of home as he sank into her for the first time. He had been so lost, for so long, but here was safety, in her arms, in her heart, between her thighs. Here was a way to show her, without words, all that she meant to him, all that he felt for her. He was so bad with words, too blunt, and unable to tell of the finer and more tender emotions he had hidden away for so long. He was just beginning to allow those feelings to surface.

Magnanimous as always, she accepted whatever he gave, interpreting his grunts and glances, learning to read the subtle differences in his silences. She understood his language. It was only fair that he tried to speak hers, but it was so hard. His tongue lay thick and heavy in his mouth when he tried to express the enormity gratitude and love he felt for her. His words were too often brief, his tone flat, though the sparkle in her eyes told him she read between the lines, understood that he was a man of action, not poetry.

It was not fair to her, he knew. She deserved to hear what his heart whispered to hers, but until he could find his words, he told her with each kiss to her forehead that he adored her keen mind. His rough fingers interlaced with her own told her he admired the beautiful paradox of the strength of her fist, the gentleness of her healing touch. His mouth on her breast told her he had hungered for her for so very long. When he was inside of her, she was inside of him, filling his darkness with her light. She was his family and his home. Let the village fade and the world burn. As long as she was for him, he wanted for nothing else.

He would stop at nothing to protect her. His strength was all for her, and he found that in this deep bond, a spiritual and physical connection so intense he sometimes could not tell when she began and he ended, he was the strongest he had ever been.


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura thought she had loved Sasuke with her whole heart when she tried to stop him from leaving Konoha. Her gentle heart cried out for him, knowing with a wisdom beyond her years that the sad and frightened boy would not find what he sought anywhere outside of Konoha.

When she met him again on the battlefield, when she cried out in desperation, confessing her love for him again, Sakura knew that girlish love had only scratched the surface of feeling. On that ravaged plain, it did not matter if Sasuke returned to her so long as he returned to them, to his team and village. Whatever evils Sasuke had done in the name of his own twisted sense of justice made no difference to her. She loved him in his darkness, believing in the spark of light that still lived within him. 

When Sasuke returned home to face his crimes, she loved him in his humility. To see him willingly lay down arms to make amends made her realize she loved him far more than she even realized. She loved him even more as he bent his proud head and accepted his punishment, kindling his inner light on his own into something even brighter.

During that time, after he was freed from prison but before he left on his journey, he sought her out, at first with Naruto by his side, but then more and more frequently, just he alone would appear at her apartment door, or outside the hospital, never explaining himself but leaving no doubt that he was there to spend time with her.

These casual meetings became more frequent as they took walks around the village or met for lunch, and ultimately, they became more private, more purposeful. 

They would talk. 

Sometimes about his uncertain fate. Sometimes about her work at the hospital. Sometimes about Naruto. Sometimes about his family long dead and his brother, more recently so. Sometimes they said nothing at all, content in their silence, sitting close together with shoulders or fingers brushing.

Sometimes she would cry, for herself, for him. Sometimes, though rarely, he cried, wrapped in her arms, his one good arm resting on her shoulder or her waist. He buried his mismatched gaze into the crook of her neck and wept for his sins, for his family, for wasted time.

Sometimes, shortly before he left for his redemption journey, he would kiss her forehead, right on the purple seal that marked her as Tsunade’s successor. Sometimes, his lips travelled to her shining eyes, closing them with a kiss on each lid, while his lone hand rested softly on her cheek. Sometimes, his lips were bold, pressing down against her own, his tender heart thundering so that she could almost hear it. Sometimes she would lay one work-hardened palm on his chest to feel that fluttering beat and marvel at how fragile he was beneath the powerful exterior. She had once held Naruto’s beating heart in her hand quite literally, her mouth pressed to his to breath life back into his body. This was not so different in its way. Sasuke trembled when she tilted her chin to meet his tentative kiss more soundly, her mouth moving shyly against his warm lips, and she realized with sudden clarity that she also held Sasuke’s heart in her hands. She parted her lips, causing him to inhale sharply, allowing her to breath life back into his dark and damaged soul.

Still, her methods were only so effective for someone who had walked so long in darkness.

He left her again on the journey which would complete his healing, but he tapped her forehead, fingers brushing her skin in a touch far more intimate than even his lips had been, confessing without words that he loved her, too. That he would come back for her when he was whole, if not in body, at least in soul. It was a promise made to her and to himself, confessed before a trusted witness in the bright light of day. 

And he kept his promise. 

She thought she loved him before. It was nothing compared to the feeling when he returned to her, made her his wife in front of many more witnesses before whisking her away. His darkness had abated, but there was still work to be done. This time, however, she would be by his side as his friend and teammate and lover. 

He loved her. He did not say it often, but he told her with the faith he had in her abilities when they worked together in battling enemies they encountered on their new mission. He told her with his warm, appreciative stares, watching her heal sick villagers or carry loads of rubble from homes ruined in war. 

Sasuke told her loved her with the way her name rolled off of his tongue when he greeted her in the morning when she awoke, warm in his embrace or when he called her to his side to get her opinion on a matter. He loved her with the way he chuckled at her fits of temper and with his quiet groans when he let her have her way with him. He loved her with bruising kisses and frantic thrusts to the very core of her being. 

Sakura had thought she understood love -- she loved her parents and friends, and she had long loved Sasuke. But this feeling between them went far beyond the typical hearts, flowers, and tender sighs. It went beyond her tearful devotion and sacrifice. Their connection was forged of something far deeper than feeling, something far beyond words.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarada and Shino have a talk after Sasuke leaves on his long term mission.
> 
> Is this Sasusaku? Only peripherally, but it does deal with their daughter. Also, how do you write Shino? I have no idea, but I tried.

Sarada Uchiha was not a happy girl.

Not that everyone would have noticed. She tended to be a solemn little thing most days, at least during school. Sarada took after her father in intensity and after her mother in her intention to excel academically, so the pensive expression on her round face was not exactly out of place in the classroom.

However, on the playground, she was usually a cheerful girl who enjoyed playing with the other children. Her black hair and midnight eyes behind her new red-framed glasses spoke of her Uchiha blood, but the bright and friendly smile she offered to her playmates was all Sakura. Today though, she politely rebuffed ChoCho’s offer to eat chips on the swing set and turned up her nose at Boruto’s brash insistence that she join in a rowdy game of tag with him and Shikadai. She wandered off from her classmates, clenching her hands into tight fists.

Sarada had attended Shino Aburame’s classes for almost three years now, and he knew her as well as he knew any of his students, maybe better since she was the offspring of a pair of his own classmates. He was a conscientious teacher, taking note of not just the little ones’ minds and abilities, but their emotional well-being as well. He had always been a sensitive soul himself, and he recognized that the eight-year-old girl sitting alone on a bench at the far side of the play area was nursing a secret pain.

Maybe not so secret, Shino mused. Everyone knew Sasuke had been dispatched on a classified mission and had not been seen in the village for nearly a year. Sakura kept up appearances, assuring everyone who inquired that  _ all was well, Sasuke would be home soon enough, her parents and Ino were a wonderful help with Sarada when she was working long hours at the hospital, no need to worry about the Uchihas… _

Except that Shino was worried, at least about the littlest Uchiha. Striding across the playground, pausing only to chide Boruto for playing keep away with Inojin’s paintbrush, he made his way to the girl sitting alone, her slumped shoulders a sad contrast to the the proud uchiwa symbol stitched on the back of her white blouse.

“Good morning, Sarada,” Shino announced his presence. The girl straightened up respectfully, looking up at her teacher. Her eyes were bright behind her glasses. Not crying, though. Not yet.

“Good morning, Aburame-sensei,” Sarada said politely, but her bottom lip was pushed out into a distinctive Uchiha pout. 

“May I join you?” he asked, gesturing to the bench. Sarada looked surprised, and a trifle fearful. It was not like her rather aloof teacher to be so informal. She expected such open gestures from the Hokage, her Papa’s best friend, or even from Iruka-sensei, but Aburame-sensei was very dignified, something of which Sarada was most approving. This was an unusal request from her teacher. Still, she was not going to refuse her sensei, and nodding hesitantly, she moved over to give him room.

Shino sat down and joined Sarada in looking straight ahead, sitting silently together, the sound of her classmates playing and shouting a familiar background noise to this unfamiliar situation.

“I suspect you are unhappy,” Shino said bluntly, still not looking at his student even though he saw her jerk her head to stare at him from the corner of his eye.

Sarada’s lower lip trembled, but she did not reply, merely stared up at her teacher. 

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asked, looking down at her.

Sarada looked down at her feet, attempting to hide the way her little face crumpled at his question. She shook her head.

Shino waited.

After a moment and after a heavy sigh, Sarada glanced up at her teacher.

“No,” she said in a small voice. “I mean...not that it would make a difference anyway. No one will tell me anything.” She reached up to adjust her glasses in an attempt to surreptitiously wipe away a tear.

“Ah,” Shino replied.

He looked straight ahead again, marking the number of gnats in the air. It was early fall, but the weather was still a bit hot, the air thick and humid. Sarada sat stiff and silent next to him, chewing her bottom lip.

“This is about your father, then,” he said.

Sarada heaved a heavy sigh and then another before she regained control of herself enough to mutter, “Yes, sensei.”

“I do not have any information to share in that regard,” he told her, matter-of-fact. He did not. He knew as much as anyone did, and he suspected Sarada probably knew even less, which was entirely for her safety. 

“I figured as much,” Sarada said bitterly, and reached up to swipe at her nose. Shino reached into his pocket, retrieving a handkerchief which he silently offered to the girl. She looked at it doubtfully, anxious that it may have shared a pocket with his insects -- which to be honest, it had. Her polite nature took over, and she finally took the offered handkerchief, subtly shaking it out, just to be on the safe side. She dabbed at her eyes and nose.

Again, they sat, Sarada twisting the handkerchief in her hands, and Shino listening to his other students’ shrieks and laughter in the distance. There was an argument starting between Boruto and Inojin again...well, they would work it out. He turned to the girl next to him.

“I was left behind once,” he told her.

Sarada looked up at her teacher, a frown creasing her forehead. She looked very much like her missing father at that moment. She did not speak, but waited for him to continue.

“All the boys in my class,” Shino began, “all of my  _ friends _ , were chosen for a very important mission.” He paused to clear his throat. “But I was not chosen, and I had to stay behind in the village.”

He turned to look at her directly, the sunlight glinting off her glasses made it difficult to see her eyes. 

“I was very angry,” he said simply.

She nodded hesitantly, her hands relaxing their death grip on the handkerchief.

“More than that,” Shino said, looking off into the distance again, “My feelings were hurt.”

“Yes,” came Sarada’s quiet response. Yes, that was how she felt, too.

“Also, I was very lonely,” Shino winced a bit at this confession, but the little girl looking up at him with a dawning hope on her face made him continue. “I had my teammate, Hinata, in the village…”

“Boruto’s mama,” Sarada realized. Shino nodded.

“Yes, and your mother was here, too,” Shino noted Sarada’s look of surprise. “They were my friends as well, but it was not the same.”

He waited as Sarada considered this.

“No,” Sarada said at last, her voice breaking, “it’s not.”

“No,” Shino agreed. 

A warm breeze ruffled Sarada’s bangs as she sat thoughtfully, considering her teacher’s words. Shino stared straight ahead, waiting and listening. He heard Inojin laugh and Boruto’s excited reply. That was all right then.

“Did your friends come back?” Sarada asked him after a few moments, trying to squelch the hope in her voice. 

“Oh yes,” he answered her. “Their mission had failed, of course, but they came back.”

_ If they had taken him along, perhaps they would not have failed, perhaps Sasuke would never have gone rogue, perhaps he would not have felt the need to redeem himself, perhaps he would be here in the village now... _

“I don’t want my Papa to fail,” Sarada replied sadly, interupting that particular line of thought, “but I do want him to come back.”

“Of course you do,” Shino told her. 

“Sensei?” Sarada gave him a very earnest look, “Did you forgive your friends when they came back? For leaving you?”

Shino looked down at his student, thankful for his own glasses which hid his startled expression.

“I-” he started and covered his hesitation by clearing his throat, “I suppose I did.”

“I’m glad,” Sarada replied. “Thank you, sensei.” She could not quite smile, but she glanced up at him shyly.

He nodded at her and then braced his hands on his knees before standing up, straight and dignified as always.

“I will see you in class, Sarada,” he told her and turned back to his other students, leaving the youngest Uchiha sitting a little straighter on her bench.

Recess was at its end, and as he stood by the gate, ushering the students back to class, Kiba wandered up with Akamaru by his side.

“Isn’t the school day done, yet?” Kiba complained, looking somewhat bemused by the sea of children swarming around his teammate. “I need your help. I’ve got this date tonight…”

“Oh, now you need my help,” Shino retorted, not looking at Kiba but nodding politely to Akamaru.

“What’s up with you?” Kiba asked. Shino was so touchy sometimes.

“I was just reminded that you did not need my help when you left me behind,” Shino stated with dignity. 

“Left behind? When—?” Kiba’s lip curled up in confusion, revealing one pointed canine. 

“You didn’t need my help when you all went to retrive Sasuke,” Shino explained. He reached out to stop Shikadai and held out his hand expectantly. The boy groaned something that sounded suspciously like “ _ what a drag, _ ” and handed over the video game he was attempting to hide under his sweater.

“Retrieve Sas-- isn’t he on a mission or something?” Kiba scratched his head. Kiba had not seen Sasuke in over a year, not that he ever saw him much anyway. What was Shino talking about?

Shino did not answer, silently counting heads as the students marched past him.

“Are you kidding me?” Kiba exclaimed in sudden realization. “You are still on about that?”

Shino turned to look Kiba in the face, “It’s not an easy thing to deal with, being left behind.”

Kiba shook his head, “Damn it, man, that was sixteen years ago!”

“Yes,” Shino said, watching Sarada fall into line behind the others. She gave him a watery smile as she walked past, “but it still...rankles.”

Kiba snorted and shook his head. “Can you believe this guy, Akamaru? Sixteen years…”

Shino watched Sarada walk toward the school building. “Sometimes I wonder if we had worked together, maybe things could have been better...Easier, perhaps.”

“Easier?” Kiba looked puzzled before his eyes followed Shino’s gaze, his own sharp eyes fixing on the uchiwa on Sarada’s little back. They watched her disappear into the school building with the rest of the children.

“Ah…” Kiba looked uncomfortable, scratching the back of his neck, “well, who knows. You can only do your best at the time, right?”

“Hmm,” Shino grunted noncommittally.

“Look,” Kiba asked, utterly exasperated, “Are you going to help me, or not?”

“Yeah,” Shino sighed. “Class is out at two.”

Kiba grinned brightly. “Thanks, man!” he called to Shino’s retreating back, “You are the best, you know that!”

“Yeah, and that’s why you should not have left me behind,” Shino muttered over his shoulder before he entered the building, prepared to teach his afternoon class.

  
  



	4. The Papa, the Mama, and the Peanut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of domestic Sasusaku, and I just know Sasuke has seen every spaghetti western ever.

Settling down in Konoha in a proper house as a family of three took longer than the Uchiha family had anticipated. After two crowded months living with Sakura’s parents, they were finally settled into their own home, though “settled” might not quite be the word for it. There were windows to wash, walls to paint, a nursery to decorate. 

When they first moved in, neither Sakura nor Sasuke owned a single item to furnish a house. She had lived with her parents until she left Konoha with Sasuke. Sasuke had been a wanderer for years. Whatever sparse furnishings and household items that had sustained him in the tiny apartment he had rented after being released from prison had long been discarded or taken up by someone else. They literally had their baby, their weapons and the clothes on their backs when they returned home. So, in addition to fixing up their new home, they had to shop for furniture, cookware, towels, and dishracks. The details involved in making a home were almost overwhelming to the two shinobi who were used to the straightforward nature of life on the road. There they only needed their wits and their strength. 

Now, apparently, they needed a dizzying area of items: deposits for the electricity and water, a smoke detector, area rugs, a garden hose, and, according to Mebuki Haruno, throw pillows. So many throw pillows. Add a new baby to the mix, and they were most definitely out of their depth.

Villagers who knew Sasuke Uchiha as both a dangerous criminal and a war hero were taken aback when they saw him in the marketplace, jouncing a rosy-cheeked baby on his shoulder, frowning in a baffled kind of way as he tried to decide between the navy blue or striped linens his pink-haired wife brandished before him.

“But I like the blue,” he said shifting the baby with his one hand to sit a little higher on his shoulder. 

“The thread count is higher on the striped ones though,” Sakura argued. A warning whine from the baby helped them hurry up and decide that they would buy both. Baby Sarada was the light of their lives, but Sakura and Sasuke had soon discovered that with a newborn, you had to move fast, which was why they now owned a sofa in a shade of brown that Sakura really was not sure about, but getting to the furniture shop had taken longer than they had anticipated. By the time they had settled on a sofa, Sarada was hungry, Sakura was tired, and Sasuke was done pretending that he cared about the color of anything that would only end up grubby with a baby in the house. 

And so, Sakura now sat on their new brown sofa with a pile of clean laundry in a basket at her feet. Sasuke sat on the other end of the sofa, giving her room to pile up the neatly folded laundry between them before she carried it back to their bedroom to put away. Baby Sarada was content for the moment, on the floor between her parents, kicking her little legs and fiddling with a string of brightly colored beads hung over her bouncy seat. 

Sakura smiled at her baby, so clever to be playing with toys at her age! She turned to Sasuke to see if he had noticed, but he was staring straight ahead at the television where an old western film was on screen. 

Sakura paused in the endless folding of clean diapers to admire his handsome profile. The dark eyebrows. His straight nose. Sasuke wore an old pair of shorts and a plain white t-shirt and had a smudge of oil high on one fine cheekbone and another on his chin, but he was no less handsome for it. He was polishing Sakura’s shurikins and kunai, which she had not handled since the baby had come. It was a thoughtful gesture to see to the upkeep of her weapons and spoke of his belief in her. She was the mother of his child AND a powerful kunoichi. She would need to keep her weapons in good repair until she had use for them again, and with her hands full with the baby, he was happy to step in. 

Each weapon was laid out carefully on a cloth at his feet, and in his hand he held a rag he was using to wipe down each one as he carefully balanced it on his knee. For now though, the polishing rag was still. He was entranced by the movie, his dark eyes flickering back and forth as he watched the action unfold on screen.

Sakura was still not used to seeing her husband in a state of such relaxation. He prided himself on being ever vigilant, but since they had returned to Konoha and set up their home, these fleeting carefree moments were becoming more and more frequent.

Sasuke was a worrier. Sakura knew he was never going to be any different in that respect, and rightfully so. However, now that they were settled in, the flurry of painting walls and buying furniture and dishes and vacuum cleaners aside, Sakura would catch her husband in these moments of complete and utter peace. 

It had some to do with having the house finally coming to order. It had much more to do with her and Sarada.

Sasuke had a family. He had a home that was not the site of his family’s massacre or the darkened hideout of a mad scientist or a terrorist organization. He was not sleeping under the open sky, always at the alert or alone in a barren apartment. He had a home where his pretty, pink-haired wife cooked him his favorite fish for dinner, where a sweet, cuddly baby snuggled against his chest as he rocked her to sleep, where he lay down on striped sheets (soft because of the high thread count. Sakura had been right) and listened to the soft breathing of his wife and daughter, safe by his side.

Kakashi still assigned him missions, but while the baby was so young, they were brief and close to the village. So, Sasuke had time to enjoy being at home, something he had not had since he was 7-years-old. He puttered about the house, changing a light fixture here, rehanging a closet door there. It was not so different from what he did during some parts of his atonement journey, but the difference was that the house belonged to him and his little family. The most mundane of tasks were performed with an air of satisfaction. And when the day’s work was done, he would sit with Sakura and the baby, quietly enjoying being near as he studied a scroll or sharpened his sword. Sometimes, like now, he even forgot the task he set for himself to just watch t.v., like a regular person. 

For all that Sakura admired her husband’s dark, brooding style -- it was a sexy look, no doubt about it-- to see him kicked back in a pair of shorts, watching television in their very own living room made her heart burst with love. Here was the boy she loved all those years ago. Her teammate and her friend, safe and happy once again.

Sakura had known of Sasuke’s interest in the old stories of sheriffs and outlaws. She’d been obsessed with him as a girl, and as his teammate, she quickly picked up on his preferences: tomatoes and fish, salty instead of sweet, and given a choice, he’d prefer to watch an old western more than anything else. If he ever bothered to watch television. Which he usually did not. 

But after they had begun dating, if what they did could be called dating -- one day they were barely teammates again, the next day they were fully committed to one another, marriage a foregone conclusion despite the distance that would lay between them during his atonement journey-- she realized his clan’s role as peacekeepers had meant more to him than she had realized before. As a little boy, he had wanted to join the police force and keep the village safe from ruffians and outlaws. The Konoha police force did not exist in the same capacity anymore, but in his way, Sasuke was like a sheriff, wandering the untamed land, keeping law in the chaos. For a time during this last mission, she had been his sidekick in their daring adventure until the arrival of Sarada cast her into a new role, as mother and the keeper of the homestead until the wandering sheriff returned. It was a good role and one that fit her well. Wherever Sasuke’s missions took him, she would make sure there would be home waiting for him, a place where he could find peace and love waiting for him. A place where he could feel safe enough to lay down his duty for a while and take pleasure in the company of those he worked to protect.

“So, who is that...in the hat?” Sakura asked Sasuke. She’d been distracted throughout the film, making tea, feeding Sarada, changing a diaper. She did not mind. They were all pleasant, homey tasks. She was not following the movie that closely, but she was enjoying watching Sasuke enjoy it.

“That’s Ugly,” he said, “He’s the bandit from the beginning, remember?” 

Sakura did not, but Sasuke patiently filled her in on the story of bad men and ugly men and good men (who were maybe not so good) while she folded their laundry and their baby dozed between them.


End file.
